Can a PR Consultant Pitch Media Clients as a Journalist?
It's common for freelance writers to juggle marketing and journalism gigs. Less so for media relations specialists like Pip, who already works closely with the editors they want to write for.
A Writer Asks:
I’m a freelance PR consultant, mainly in media relations, working closely with editors and TV and radio producers to feature my clients in their respective outlets. I also have a background in journalism.
I have a story idea that I’d like to write for a publication, but will pitching and (hopefully) writing a story jeopardize my PR career? I also worry that if I pitch an editor that I’ve worked with in a PR capacity, it could ruin my relationship with them.
Will an editor who knows me from PR even take me seriously? Will they question my journalism ethics, even if it’s in a totally different field than the subject I want to report?
—Publicist with an Interesting Pitch (Pip)
Dear Pip:
Let me start with the easiest question: Will writing for a publication hurt your PR career? Not even a little bit. In fact, doing some editorial work on the side might make you more desirable to corporate clients, which could cause a host of other problems that I’ll get to later in this column.
But, first, let’s get through the reasons you should pitch your story.
Freelance journalism can be a shaky career, so it’s not unusual for writers to pull extra income from marketing and communications. It’s usually journalism-adjacent, such as trade magazines, but not always.
During my first three years of full-time freelancing, I dabbled in web copy, commercial songwriting, and voice work. More recently, I’ve ghostwritten memoirs for influential people. I’ll let my editors know if there’s even a perception of conflict, allowing them to decide what level of disclosure is necessary for me to write it, if at all.
As a magazine editor, I’ve also assigned stories to many freelancers with one foot — even one-and-a-half feet — in the PR world. One of them was Janis Galloway, now vice-president of communications for Press + Post. Back then, she was a prolific lifestyle writer and freelance publicist. Wondering how Janis reassured editors who may be skeptical of her journalism, I reached out for a second opinion. Here’s what she said:
I was always nervous about how my stories would be perceived, but as long as I was upfront with my editors and producers—and confirmed that I would not include my clients in the story—they were okay with me working on both sides of the media table.
So, that’s more good news. Here’s where your own situation gets sticky…
From the sounds of it, Pip, you have two firmly planted feet in the PR world. Regardless of your journalism background, your public relations foreground will overshadow it. As feared, editors and producers who know you to be great at promotion will probably treat you less seriously than if they had no relationship with you at all. Yes, even if the subject matter is unrelated to your PR duties.
It’s with good reason, too. Any editor who has worked with freelancers long enough has encountered a breach of conflict-of-interest ethics. Sometimes it’s benign; they profiled a friend without disclosing it. Rarely, but sometimes, it’s shady; the profile subject paid for the story.
To my knowledge, I’ve never run up against the latter. Had I, you better believe it that I’d blackball the writer and tattle tale to my peers. That writer would never get so much as a press release through me again, let alone an editorial piece. So, I guess there is one way that writing a journalism story could “jeopardize" your PR career, after all.
This is what I meant earlier, when I said that successfully moonlighting as a journalist could cause problems. Savvy clients knowledgeable of journalism’s pay rates might offer you four times as much to sell a positive story about them. I’ve heard these temptations are so frequent that some TV news programs assume it, and now bill on-air influencers (freelance publicists by another name). The sincerity of your question suggests this hasn’t crossed your mind, but the day might come when a client makes an offer that’s hard to refuse. If nothing else, just be aware of the conversations you might have to have with people in both sectors of your profession.
You may then want to pitch stories outside of your regional market until you’ve got the cred to ease your local editors and producers’ worries. But you can also just go for it with the relationships you’ve worked hard to build already, aware that they’ll need extra reassurance. (Consider making a shareable Google Doc of your clients and conflicts of interests for transparency.) With that, I’ll let Janis offer the last piece of advice:
“If you have an established relationship with an editor, just let them know that you’re starting to dabble in journalism, and confirm the story you’re pitching does not feature any of your PR clients. I encourage you to follow your heart, and if you have a great story to share — go for it!”
Have a question? Email me! Are you shy? Ask anonymously!
Something for Your Toolkit
Who Pays Writers?
A crowd-sourced database of freelancer pay-rates? Yes, please! I’ve personally used Who Pays Writers? to negotiate higher rates from editors based on these reports from my anonymous peers.
Created in 2012 by Manjula Martin, who edited Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living, it lists hundreds of publications with an average pay rate based on anonymous reports, which also include notes about the assignment scope and duration of payment. You might find the information disheartening, but keep in mind that, like Yelpers, freelancers tend to report negative experiences more than positive ones.
And One Shameless Plug…
Was Eddy Haymour a Terrorist or Civil Rights Martyr?
This saga about a theme-park developer-turned-hostage taker originally ran in Eighteen Bridges and won the National Magazine Award for Best Profile in 2013. I recently updated it for Edify with revelations uncovered in Eddy’s Kingdom, a documentary inspired by the article. Read the feature and check out the trailer below.
At Large is edited by Danielle Paradis. Find out about her and her work at danielleparadis.com and follow her on Twitter @daniparadis.
Special thanks to Janis Galloway of Press + Post for her response to the writer’s question. Follow her on Twitter @JanisLGalloway.